By focusing on Harbaugh, SEC’s camp ban effort misfired

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh’s affinity for satellite camps in the southeastern United States sparked the SEC into mounting an effort to ban them.(Photo: Tiffany Tompkins, AP)

Of all the ridiculous things that emanated from the Southeastern part of the country during this year-long imbroglio over whether schools can hold college football camps outside their geographic era, nothing topped the faux concern that somehow Jim Harbaugh setting up shop in Georgia or Florida for a few days was somehow going to turn college football recruiting into a year-round circus.

“What we’re talking about is recruiting tours,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told reporters last year when the issue first started to bubble. “So, let’s just be clear about what we’re really talking about here.”

The strategy, of course, was transparent: To turn recruiting into a dirty word, as if somehow the entire enterprise in which these people operate doesn’t revolve around the pristine pursuit of attracting athletes to their school.